My guess is that we just miss them. So much area to cover and so few people covering it. I think this is just a perfect example of how many good birds get by us without being detected. That is not the case for Cape May. Very small area and loads of coverage. All the birds bottleneck there before heading out over the bay. Take the birds I found today as an example. I spent 6 and a half hours on the beach from morning until early afternoon and did not see a single swallow. Picked my kids from school, dropped them off at a friend and went back out to see what I could find. Went back exactly where I was earlier and there they were. May not have noticed them if one did not fly right past me while I was walking out to the beach. Takes lots of luck to be right where they are and looking in their direction when the happen to be flying by.
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 17:30:07 -0500 > From: jgl...@optonline.net > Subject: [nysbirds-l] Cave Swallows > To: NYSBIRDS-L@cornell.edu > > Maybe I’m jumping the gun on this and good numbers of Cave Swallows will > be seen along the Atlantic coast of NY this weekend, but I find it > puzzling that so many have been seen down in Cape May recently and only > a handful here thus far. > Even taking into account Cape May’s history of hosting substantial > November incursions of Cave Swallows, and it’s penchant for > concentrating large numbers of southbound migrants in general, the > disparity between the numbers seen there over the past week (~400, Wed. > -- today) relative to the rest of the NE U.S. (16, 11 in only 6 eBird > reports plus Isaac Grant’s Staten Is. birds today) is striking. I don’t > think even the greater density of birders in Cape May would account for > such an imbalance. My understanding of past Cave Swallow invasions > (correct me if I’m wrong) had the birds being transported to the NE by > prolonged SW winds (like we’ve had recently) and first being seen in > numbers along the shores of the Great Lakes, then subsequently (1-2 days > later) along the Atlantic coast after the wind shifted NW. Any > hypotheses on how/why so many swallows have reached Cape May while > eluding detection by savvy birders elsewhere? Whatever the explanation, > I’ll be out early tomorrow looking for some — and Franklin’s Gulls too! > > -- > > NYSbirds-L List Info: > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm > > ARCHIVES: > 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html > 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L > 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html > > Please submit your observations to eBird: > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ > > -- > -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
